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| Please - no flogging | |
One of the better techniques in manipulating meetings is the art of keeping
your mouth shut when things are going your way. Sometimes even committee
structures lurch clumsily in the right direction, and on those occasions all
that is necessary is to give an encouraging nod and grunt to speed things up.
The most tempting strategy of shouting 'get on with it, morons!' is
actually counter productive - it might upset the flow. Today was one of those days in the big meeting called Australian Politics. One
of those days that goes so well, that the sensible thing is to just sit back
and enjoy the machinations. That's why yours truly feels compelled to write about it. Little Johnny started the black-ball rolling by repeating prophetic statements
he had made two days before the Cronulla riots about there being unwelcome
Islamic extremists in our midst. Not be outdone, long-suffering Treasurer and PM in waiting Peter
(Smirky) Costello criticized "mushy,
misguided multiculturalism", and suggested that people who didn't adopt
'Australian values' should be stripped of Australian citizenship if they had
dual (or multiple) citizenship. Exactly what 'Australian values' meant wasn't
really clear, and the government mechanism for making this decision wasn't
discussed, but it achieved its purpose: the Islamic lobby started squealing
like stuck pigs and saying that Australia was 'moving away from its
multicultural values'. Nice of you all to notice. Most people don't know what to make of a Treasurer who makes statements outside
his portfolio, and would normally dismiss such things with 'shouldn't you
be sitting at your desk raising taxes or something?'. Most people need a
compass to help them know what to think, and they have discovered one: when the
Muslim leaders complain about
it, it's probably a good thing. The Muslim lobby have gotten so much benefit from pig-squealing over the last
two decades, that they don't know how to do anything else. Like a spoiled child
who learns that the best strategy to get their way is to immediately throw
themselves on the floor and wail. Even when it stops working, they keep doing
it because they don't know anything else. It's quite funny. And the reaction from state governments? Far from vilify Smirky, NSW party
leaders Morris Iemma and Peter Debnam both heaped praise on the
Treasurer. Further away from Sydney (and further away from the problems that multiculturalism has
caused) it was a different story. Steve Bracks said that 'Mr Costello [was]
playing politics'. No flies on Steve. And Peter Beattie says Mr Costello's
comments were a cheap shot for populist approval. Yes Peter, it's the way to
win elections in a democracy. Of course Bob Brown-nose just followed the example of the Muslim lobbys
and screamed something about 'wedgie politics' as usual (must be a fantasy
boy thing), but the most interesting response came from Kim (Fatboy) Beasley.
Opposition Leader Kim Beasley says if the Government has concerns it should do
more than make speeches about it. "Costello's in power, he's been in office for 10 years if he's got a
problem with people who've come into this country who are committed to Jihad or
committed to any form of violence," he said, "Why doesn't he do something about
it?"
Well Kim, it seems that most of them arrived on your watch (during the reign of
the last Labour government in
which Fatboy was a senior minister). So are you going to admit that you got it
wrong (and presumably be too ashamed to contest the next election)? Kim is
playing his usual game - whining about the Howard government without actually
criticizing anything they do - in the hope of pleasing both sides. Kim, Kim, redneck feminist academics don't breed fast
enough to swing the vote, and even Danna Vale says that the Muslim
majority is 50 years away. This is no way to win an election.
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